GM Plan Leaves Workers In Shock

30,000 Automotive Jobs Will Be Eliminated Over Next Three Years

(CBS/AP) 
Some union leaders in the Lansing, Mich., area, where GM has been a dominant presence for years and about 1,400 jobs are expected to be lost, said they received just 10 minutes' notice that one of their parts factories was targeted for closure next year.

"We're shocked," said Chris Sherwood, president of United Auto Workers Local 652, which represents about 1,000 workers at a GM metal center in Ingham County's Lansing Township. "We thought we had a pass on this round. But we didn't."

The Michigan losses include 400 at GM's Craft Centre, where workers build the slow selling Chevrolet SSR two-seater truck. That plant is slated to close in mid-2006, followed by a parts processing operation in Ypsilanti in 2007 and an engine facility in Flint that makes the 3800-series engine in 2008.

"It's kind of a sad day for a lot of people," said James Wells, 51, hours after learning his Lansing factory with an estimated 1,000 hourly workers would close next year. "But a lot of us could go to other plants. There are a lot of options."

The Lansing area now has an estimated 6,500 GM jobs, about a third as many as during employment peaks in the 1970s and 1980s. But GM is building up a parts and vehicle assembly operation in nearby Delta Township, where some of the workers affected in the upcoming closings might find work. The automaker also opened a Cadillac assembly factory near downtown Lansing in recent years.

CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta reports that lifetime employees Jerry Robinson and Randall Moon at the Doraville, Ga. plant believe they are witnessing an end of an era when a person could enter the middle class at the factory door (video).

"It's a good factory job," Robinson said. "I support a family well off of it."

A factory worker in Doraville makes roughly $25 an hour, plus health care and retirement benefits. Moon is a second generation GM employee who was hoping to pass on that kind of legacy to his son.

"It's going to be tough on the younger people out there," Moon told Acosta. "They have to decide what they are going to do with their future now."

The 3,900 workers at GM's oldest plant in Janesville, Wis., were among the most surprised that their facility wasn't targeted. But spokeswoman Carolyn Markey said one reason may be the plant's launch of the next line of the largest sport utility vehicles early next year, funded in part by $10 million in state-provided money for worker training.

Janesville employees have been trained to build the more fuel-efficient GMT-900 series, including Chevy Suburbans, Tahoes and GMC Yukons at the 86-year-old facility.

GM's local payroll, at $225 million, accounts for more than 6 percent of local wages, and that left Angie Zahn, manager of the Citgo gas station next to the GM plant, thankful. "They go down, we go down," she said. "This whole town would have turned into a ghost town."